Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Orange is the New Read

Silly title for this post, but I've been watching back to back episodes of Netflix's new show about prison inmates (orange) and their lives inside. These women could definitely benefit from bibliotherapy as this study confirms. But, watching the show makes me wonder about the likelihood of funding ever being found to implement it in a meaningful way. Possibly libraries that had neighboring prisons could provide free outreach. I did this for a while with the local county jail in a community while library director. The women who participated impressed me with their depth of self-awareness and willingness to deconstruct the literature accordingly. Unfortunately, the program wasn't sustainable. Short staffing limited our outreach and the program was eventually dropped.